The Last Drive

A few days ago, I took one last long drive with you, 1997 Mazda Miata.

 
We took a familiar route, one that we both liked with plenty of twists and turns and open road so that I could open you up and feel the way you hugged the curves and how it felt one last time to zoom past other drivers.

I patted you on the dash and I cried because I knew it was the last time we'd do this. Anyone reading this would probably think that I am melodramatic and weird to do that. They probably never needed a car the way I did when you came into my life.

They probably would never understand how the first time I saw you, my heart kind of fluttered a little bit, the way it does when you first see a person who strikes you as attractive and, totes hot as the kids say.

I also knew that our time had come. There were signs...lately you'd begun to cough a bit and seemed tired a lot of the time. You decided that idling and running the air conditioner were functions you'd no longer perform simultaneously. Your doctor bills were really adding up. I, not being a car surgeon myself, never really understood what was actually ailing you. It was never that I didn't care, I felt helpless watching you decline. More than anything, I wanted to save you because you'd been just about the best car I'd ever had.

We had so much fun together. So many trips with the top down and the wind in our hair, the radio blaring out 80's classics. You gave me probably the only real youth I'd ever known. You made me the kind of person I'd always wanted to be, a cool chick, the kind that drives a sports car. I never felt any better than the day I was at a Subway looking at you waiting for me outside through the window when a little girl at a nearby table pointed at you and said that she wanted a car just like you when she grew up. You made me enviable and attractive.  You made it okay to be childless because you didn't have a backseat anyway.

The soulless bottom-line driven car dealer gave me a pittance for you. I still feel badly about that. Not about the money, it was never about the money. It was because for me, you were, are, and always will be priceless. Somehow you always got me to work, and to the places I needed to go. Always with that ear to ear grin on your Miata grill face. You gave your all and never let me down. Even down to the moment we putt-putted into the car dealership last Saturday.

I remember grieving our last moments together, because your black frame sitting out in the late August Florida afternoon sun was too hot to touch. I couldn't give you one last pat without incurring 3rd degree burns. I cried again as I sat in your furnace-like interior one last time trying to somehow thank you for always being there for me. I shouldn't have done it, but walking away, I turned back for one last look and such a sob rose in my throat that it physically hurt.

Your successor is not a Miata. He's a German-engineered, reliable, correct sort of fellow. Unlike you, he doesn't really make many interesting squeaks and clunks. He does his job efficiently and safely. He doesn't have your zip and panache but he does have an innate sort of dignity and class that I think you would approve of. He's the kind of car that I need these days at my new job.

I'll never forget you little 1997 Mazda Miata or what you represented to me.
I sincerely hope that you end up with a car surgeon type who can give you the sort of detailed care that you need, or failing that, that you end up reborn with your parts in a new Miata so that you can once again run free on curving roads zooming ahead of everyone with that ear splitting grin intact.

Goodbye Miata...and long live the roadster...

The Butterfly Effect

Surely you've heard of the butterfly effect...

It's the scientific theory that a single occurrence, no matter how small, can change the universe forever.

There was the ad some years back, a butterfly flapping it's wings sets off a chain of events that eventually results in a hurricane a continent and a ocean away.

I've been pondering this fact in my own life for more than a few days now.

Maybe it's because I'm a person who still believes in the magic of ordinary days or because I tend to look at the micro way more than the macro.

But something quite macro has just occurred in my life. Remember Non-Company-I-Work-For-But-Am-Not-Really-One-of-Them, well four (4) days ago, I became One-of-Them! My boss, the indomitable O'Malley managed the previously unthinkable task of turning a little under the radar contractor into a bona fide employee.

At first , inside me were emotions rivalling the Main Street Electrical Light Parade and Fourth of July Fireworks, but as it really began to sink in, and I remembered where I had started from, a strange mix of pensive solemnity and gratitude sobered me.

A little over two years ago, I began my assignment at Non-Company, as an angry, un-employed temp, so broke that I wore my sister in law's cast-off Ann Taylor two-piece to the interview and was sharing the use of a decrepit Toyota Corolla with my father. I hadn't had a car to myself since the George Bush Administration and I was worried that I wouldn't get the job, and worried that if I did, how I was going to manage to get there. The day before I'd interviewed for a high-paying job with a Financial Planning Firm that I really wanted, which would have solved all my problems and I was casual and offhand in the interview with Non-Company.  I'd put everything into the interview with the Financial Planners the day before. I was devastated and angry when told they'd selected another candidate, literally 20 minutes after I got off the phone with the FP firm, Non-Company called and said they wanted me. I called my Mom and like the ungrateful brat that I was, whined and cried telling her that I was going to 'have to take' the job with Non-Company.

So where does the butterfly effect come in...

The car.  My 1997 Mazda Miata.
My sister in law counseled my parents strongly against 'helping' me get a car.  But they saw differently. I guess they still saw something in me, something worthy. Goodness knows, at the time I didn't.

 I still have that Miata and I don't think any other vehicle will ever mean as much to me.  So much changed with that car. In short my whole life. For some reason, the moment I began driving that vehicle, I let go of the past, I let go of the anger. I quit having panic attacks.  For once I was living within my means, being the person that I was, no longer trying to cling to someone else's identity, to their values.

I was able to get to my job, do well, leave at the end of a day and not have to wait for my Dad to come get me in the ramshackle old Toyota. I can't even articulate the relief from stress and worry about transportation. My Dad freed from having to rush across town to pick me up, was able to get to his job and do well.

Some days ago, I found one of my prayer lists from approximately two (2) years ago and some bank statements. As I read this list and looked at the statements, I was so overcome by what I saw that I wept, for God has so specifically met exactly every need I laid out and looking at the statements, I saw tangibly how His hand was upon me. I was  able to see that in times of want, and in times of plenty, He really has been right there with me all the time. When you are in your thirties and down to your last $100.00, you need to KNOW that He is with you.

So many times, I tried to leave Non-Company. I sent out resumes by the dozen. I interviewed. But it seemed like God closed every door. Every time I tried to leave, something or someone would stop me. And it looks like He was right. I think He was smiling at me on Wednesday, when I began my first official day, 'See, I always know best...'

The car led to the job, the job led me to humble myself and work hard, working hard led to notice from O'Malley and O'Malley led me to bona fide employee.

You just never know what effect a seemingly small thing you do for someone else will have on their life.  Don't miss the opportunity..

The Butterfly Effect....